Blind Flutist

Blind Flutist

Blind Flutist Marches Beyond

Her Disability

by Michelle Martin

Editor's Note: This item is reprinted from the Summer, 1996,

issue of the Braille Examiner, the newsletter of the NFB of

Illinois. This article was originally published in The

Arlington Daily Herald, October, 25, 1996.

The parents of the blind student (Katie Zodrow) featured

in this article are active in the local parent group sponsored

by the NFB of Illinois and the National Organization of

Parents of Blind Children. For more information about the

Illinois group contact Debbie Stein, NFB of Illinois Parents

Group, 5817 North Nina, Chicago, Illinois 60631.

Marching band is a visual as well as a musical art form.

Viewers watch the patterns formed by the marchers and the

marchers must know where they are going. But Katie Zodrow, a

freshman at Barrington High School, hasn't let that stop her.

Blind since birth, Katie plays the flute in the band, just as

she has since she was in sixth grade. "It's a little bit hard,

I think," she said. "We even have to go sideways."

"Katie Zodrow's participation is a first for the band,"

said director Randy Karon. They've had members "march" in

wheelchairs, but never one who couldn't see where she was

going. "He was really receptive," said Zodrow's mother, Gayle.

"Even Mr. Karon (the director) wasn't sure he could do the

maneuvers with his eyes closed," she said. "She wanted to

march on the field," Karon said. "As far as I was concerned,

she had as much experience marching as all the other

ninth-graders in Barrington."

Zodrow does it with the help of Nicole Carlson, a junior

flute player who volunteered not to play so she could guide

Zodrow. Nicole Carlson, 15, began working with Katie in

practices this fall. "I lead her to the formation, and she

plays and I lead," Nicole said, "We're doing really good."

Karon the director agreed. "Quite honestly, she does just as

well as most of the other kids," Karon said. "She marches in

step as well or better."

The most difficult steps are when Katie has to walk

backward, Nicole Carlson said. "It's kind of weird at first,"

she said. In middle school, where most of the marching was of

the straight-ahead parade variety, Katie would wear a belt

similar to those used for flag football, attaching her to the

marchers on either side.

Musical scores are available in Braille--Katie uses some

when she plays the piano--but it's next to impossible to use

them when she plays the flute. "I have a really good memory,"

Zodrow said, "I take Spanish and it's really easy."

That helps her in the band, where the other students can

use written scores to learn their parts. "Her flute teacher

records it for her," said her mother, Gayle Zodrow. "She

learns it from that." Katie has perfect pitch, a gift that

enables her to identify any note she hears. The telephone

ringing in the kitchen? That's an F sharp. Strike a spoon

against a glass? That's an E natural.

Nicole Carlson, who hears Katie play more often than

anyone else, said Zodrow is good. "She plays well," Carlson

said. "She just hears something and she can play it."

Gayle Zodrow doesn't remember when she discovered that

Katie had perfect pitch. Maybe it was when, as a preschooler,

she was composing tunes that actually sounded good on the

piano. Maybe it was when she would hear a song on television

and turn around and play it. That helped develop her love of

music, a love that she hopes might turn into a career as a

recording artist. It also has helped Katie find sighted

friends to go with the blind friends she has made in various

special education programs and recreational groups, such as

the American Blind Skiing Foundation.

Katie Zodrow, who has been blind since she was born, is

the only member of her family without sight. She was born

three months premature. Doctors did not discover that she

could not see until just before she came home from the

hospital, four months after she was born. Her family moved to

the northwest suburbs from Ohio in 1983, and she began taking

early childhood classes at Einstein School in Schaumburg

Township Elementary District 54. She remained in District 54

special education programs until her family moved to

Barrington three years ago. Katie Zodrow then attended Prairie

Campus, starting sixth grade the year the middle school

opened. While she attended the same school with the rest of

the children in the neighborhood, she did receive help from

the Special Education District of Lake County.

She still meets with SEDOL teachers, and the special

education cooperative has helped her get Braille writers in

her classrooms so she can take notes and Braille versions of

her textbooks from the state. Of course, her books are larger

than everyone else's. The "pocket dictionary" takes up eight

volumes. "She just carries this big bag around," her mother

said. She also has access to a Braille computer printer so she

can read the drafts of her papers, she said.

Being the only blind student in a school of 2,200 does make

her more visible to other students, a fact that has led to her

acquaintance with a lot of non-freshmen. "She probably knows

more seniors than almost any other freshman," her mother said.

Some of that is thanks to Brooke Nelson, this year's

homecoming queen, who helped Katie find a classroom on the

first day of school. Since then, Brooke has introduced Katie

around. "She was homecoming queen because she's so nice,"

Zodrow said.

Zodrow uses a traditional white cane to get around

school, finding classes in a maze-like building that has

baffled more than one sighted visitor. In the commotion of

passing periods, her cane has gotten tripped on and stepped

on. She already has had to have it straightened. "In middle

school, I waited until all the people went by, like you're

supposed to," she said. "But then I realized I would never get

anywhere."